Chapter 1 #2
Cookie doesn’t mind as long as our customers aren’t neglected; at least, he busies himself with cleaning up the kitchen between rushes, pointedly ignoring what goes on on the other side of the order-up window.
All the tables have been bussed and wiped down. I’d refilled the sugar packet caddies, checking on the ketchup bottles, and started cleaning the main counter when I got distracted by the sensation that I was being watched. Since Derek had gone in the back to run the dishwasher, it wasn’t him.
To be fair, the way the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end, I don’t think it’s human.
I blame Derek for that. He told me about the Reed House the last time we worked together. That’s the big haunted mansion on the edge of Shadowvale where the Reed twins live—and where locals gossip about the screams they hear coming from behind the gate every Halloween.
Derek is another Shadowvale local obsessed with the holiday. That’s why, when he leaves the kitchen, wiping his hands on a rag as he joins me behind the counter, I’m not surprised that he brings it up again.
“Say, Cass, you got any plans for Halloween?”
Derek sidles next to me. The strange feeling like I’ve got eyes on me intensifies, growing heavier, almost darker, and then—like that—it’s gone.
I give my body a quick shake. My curls are pulled back in a low ponytail—since it’s either that or a hairnet, according to Cookie—and the hair whips back and forth before I settle down. The eerie sensation is gone, and I pretend like I didn’t notice it all as I glance over at Derek.
It’s Cassidy is on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow it before it can escape.
So many people over the years have shortened my name, but once I correct them, they get it right.
Well, all but Ryan, that is. He insisted he liked ‘Cass’ better and wouldn’t I be okay with just him using it?
In hindsight, that was another red flag that I ignored until it was too late.
Derek is nothing like Ryan. Blond instead of a brunet, with green eyes instead of brown, he’s also a decade younger and a head shorter. He’s just being friendly, and I give him a small smile and shrug.
“None yet,” I tell him, which isn’t exactly true. “You?”
See, I live on the third floor in an apartment on the seedier side of Shadowvale.
I picked it because it’s affordable, the road below my bedroom window is usually empty, and the street lamps make it easy for me to tell if someone is watching me from outside.
It’s full of loners like me, and I can count the number of kids I’ve seen around on one hand.
I doubt I’ll have any trick-or-treaters, and even if I do, I plan on sitting at home with the lights off, watching a marathon of Halloween movies from my childhood once I get off of work.
I’m working an iron that day next week. True to her name, Candy lives for Halloween. She asked Em to give her off, and Gloria’s got four kids so she needed the whole day, too. Tony said he was busy, and Lee’s plans for the night before means she’d only agree to come in for the dinner rush.
So it’s me, Derek, Cookie, and Emily working the six to six shift since, unlike New Jersey, diners in Shadowvale aren’t twenty-four hours. We open for breakfast, close after dinner, and if you come by when the ‘closed’ neon is lit up, too bad.
Derek ruffles the back of his overgrown blond hair. “Me and Faye are going to this party. We usually have it at the old quarry, but not after what happened last year.”
I’ve met Faye. She’s Derek’s sweet girlfriend, a bubbly redhead who is studying finance at a college just outside of Shadowvale.
I’m not really a party person—not anymore—but I can’t pretend I’m not curious. I wasn’t in Shadowvale last year, and after some of the stories that Derek’s told me about previous Halloweens, he’s got me curious.
“What happened last year?”
“During the party, some dickhead stole my buddy Leo’s car. They didn’t find it until two days later. It was twisted. Smashed. They must’ve gone on a joyride and spun out on Scotty’s Curve. As if we don’t know better than to go on that road, especially on Halloween.”
I don’t have a car. That’s another thing I’ve given up on.
After moving from state to state, putting too many miles on it as I tried to stay one step ahead of Ryan, it finally gave up the ghost this winter.
Actually, that’s how I ended up in Shadowvale.
I’d been following the GPS on my phone, cutting through the small town because I had a sudden craving for cherry pie and an Instagram reel promised that I’d find the best cherry pie at The Pie Chart, considered a hidden gem.
Hidden was right. I’d had a hard time finding Shadowvale, even with my maps app, and my car started to putter before I reached the bakery.
I ended up at the only garage in Shadowvale: Mac’s Garage, a local staple for over eighty years. I spoke with the third generation of Macs, a bald man in his forties who took one look at my engine, pronounced it dead, and told me I’d be better off buying a new car.
I couldn’t afford a new one. I could barely afford to spend a few days at the Shadowvale Inn, a nearby motel that I stayed in while I figured out my next move.
I blame The Pie Chart. Instagram was right.
That pie was delicious, and I didn’t really mind the kind of sinister Mayberry-vibes coming from the rest of the town.
I used the last of my savings for first and last month’s rent for my apartment, and since Shadowvale is a walkable city, I gave up on getting a car for the moment.
If I have to run again, I’ll figure it out.
After all, that’s what Cassidy Montrose does. What she’s always done. She figures it the fuck out.
But Scotty’s Curve? A name like that has a story, and I’m suddenly even more interested in Derek’s.
“What’s Scotty’s Curve?”
He looks surprised that I even have to ask. “Oh,” he says, chuckling. “I always forget that you’re not from here. Right. So, Scotty’s Curve, it’s this—”
“Derek. Table four needs a wipe down.”
We both turn in time to see that Emily’s break is over.
A practiced waitress, she wears her light brown hair in an elegant twist that’s held in place by two yellow pencils.
It’s a style choice more than anything since I’ve never seen her need to jot down an order, no matter how complicated.
Twenty years behind the counter will do that, I guess.
She’s a fresh-faced forty-something, with pale skin and a smattering of freckles over her nose.
Her soft pink waitress uniform—the same as mine, from the form-fitting top with its white collar to the skirt that hits right above her knees—is pristine even after the first six hours of her shift.
Mine has coffee dribbled down the front, with a few stray brown dots on my white sneakers.
Her lips are quirked in a small smile, but there’s no denying she’s the true boss here. Even though Derek said he already took care of the tables before I did the refills, if Em says it needs a wipe down, it needs a wipe down.
“Gotcha, Em,” he says, reaching for a fresh rag.
She nods, and he bounces over there. I mean it, too. Derek doesn’t walk. He sidles and he bobs and he bounces, moving to a tune in his head only he can hear.
It’s quiet now. Unless someone feeds the jukebox with quarters and picks a song, the diner’s silence is only broken up by the jangle of metal as utensils are rolled, the slap of Cookie’s spatula on the grill as he readies us for lunch, and the squeak of our non-slip sneakers on the freshly mopped floor.
I know Emily walked in on our conversation. I also know that’s been a Shadowvale resident her entire life, just like Derek.
I turn to her. “What’s Scotty’s Curve?”
“Just an old ghost story, sugar,” she says warmly.
Her voice is warm. Her blue eyes are guarded.
“Years ago, a street race went bad on the curved road over Shadowvale Lake. One of the cars wrecked. The driver and his passenger didn’t make it.
His name was Johnny, but the kids who were there in the aftermath started calling it Scotty’s Curve because Scotty was the driver who won the race. ”
“Yeah,” calls out Derek, “and because he ended up becoming the mayor of Shadowvale once he got old enough to give up racing and capitalize on the legend. At least, until Johnny haunted him right to a noose.”
“Derek.”
“What? Everyone knows that Mayor Hilton was found swinging one Halloween night. My mom was in high school when it happened. It was the ghost of Johnny—”
Em’s lips thin. “That’s enough of that, Derek. The poor boy died a gruesome death, taking an innocent girl with him. Mayor Hilton blamed himself even though it wasn’t his fault. Calling the road by his name probably made it worse. It was a tragedy.”
“Yeah, but it’s still Scotty’s Curve.”
Emily throws her hands up in the air. “You’re hopeless.”
Derek grins. “Nah. I just think it’s wicked cool how Shadowvale is one of the most haunted towns on the East Coast.”
He might.
I’m not so sure that I do.